Pushing back the boundaries: Social policy, domestic violence and women's organisations in Peru

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 355-378

  Boesten, Jelke ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRADFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIZATION; SOCIAL POLICY; VIOLENCE; WOMENS ORGANIZATION;

AYACUCHO; HUANCAVELICA; LIMA [PERU]; PERU; SOUTH AMERICA;

EID: 33747780435     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: 1469767X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X06000745     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Ann Matear, 'Gender Relations, Authoritarianism and Democratisation in Chile,' Democratization, 1999, 6 (3), pp. 100-17.
2. This is consistent with studies that suggest that domestic violence increases in post-conflict situations: Anu Pillay, 'Violence against Women in the Aftermath,' in S. Meintjes, A. Pillay and M. Turshen, The Aftermath. Women in Post-conflict Transformation (London, 2001) pp. 35-45
3. Donna Pankhurst, 'The "Sex War" and Other Wars: Towards a Feminist Approach to Peace Building,' Development In Practice 2003, 13 (2 & 3), p. 160
4. Liz Kelly, 'Wars Against Women: Sexual Violence, Sexual Politics and the Militarised State,' in S. Jacobs, R. Jacobsen and J. Marchbank (eds.), States of Conflict. Gender, Violence and Resistance (London, 2000).
5. However, the study also concluded that by 1997 the situation had stabilised and that today domestic violence in Ayacucho is no longer above average. Centro para la Promoción y Desarrollo Poblacional (CEPRODEP), Diagnóstico del desplazamiento en Ayacucho 1993-1997. Héroes sin nombre (Lima, 1997).
6. Cited in: A. Guzmán Chaganaquí, 'Para mejorar la salud reproductiva,' in J. Arroyo (ed.), La salud peruana en el siglo XXI. Retos y propuestas de política (Lima, 2002), pp. 185-238, 217.
7. Ana Güezmes, Nancy Palomino and Miguel Ramos, Violencia sexual y fisica contra las mujeres en el Perú (Lima, 2002)
8. Movimiento Manuela Ramos, 'La violencia contra la mujer en cifras,' facsimile n.d., claims that seven out of ten women suffer domestic violence, based on a study carried out by PROMUDEH. A report prepared by the Peruvian Congress analysing the first Household Survey of Family Life in Lima and Callao notes that 88.2% of women personally know other women who are victims of domestic violence. Although the Peruvian Congress reaches the conclusion that this indicates a high incidence of violence in Lima and Callao, the figures clearly do not demonstrate as much. See María Jesús Espinoza Matos, Violencia en la familia en Lima y el Callao (Lima, 2000). The feminist organisation DEMUS appears to rely on the same survey when it reports that exactly 88% of women in metropolitan Lima suffer - which is different to 88% knowing of someone - some form of violence perpetrated by their partners. In DEMUS, 'Violence,' Cinco Sentidos, 15 June 2000.
9. Canada, USA and Belgium: Laurel S. Weldon, Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence against Women. A Cross-National Comparison (Pittsburgh, 2002), pp. 211-17
10. Netherlands: Ministerie van Justitie, Privé geweld, publieke zaak (2002) www.huiselijkgeweld.nl [cited 2 February 2003]. In Nicaragua a survey similar to the Peruvian ENDES-survey, carried out in 1998, concluded that 29% of women suffered physical or sexual abuse perpetrated by intimate partners. P. Sternberg, 'Challenging Machismo: Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health with Nicaraguan Men,' Gender and Development, vol. 8, no. 1 (2000), p. 91
11. Colombia produced higher survey results (but defined violence more broadly): A National Probability Sample estimated that approximately 60% of women were physically, psychologically or sexually abused by their husbands. In Costa Rica 51% of women in an Urban Probability Sample reported that they were beaten more than once a year and 35% claimed that they were hit regularly: Lori Heise, 'Violence, Sexuality, and Women's Lives,' in R. N. Lancaster and M. Di Leonarda (eds.), The Gender/Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy (New York, 1997), p. 416. None of these surveys can be completely accurate; most estimates suggest that only 10% of women report intimate abuse. In addition, comparison is made difficult by the fact that most surveys use different sampling techniques and statistical calculations. Both Heise and Weldon list figures for wife-abuse reported in different country studies alongside each other, but the different measurements, sample sizes and characteristics make these comparisons difficult. Nevertheless, it can be tentatively concluded that Peru ranks high on the score of domestic violence when compared to other countries, but that the degree of domestic violence is not unique to Peru.
12. I conducted interviews with leaders of grass-roots women's organisations in the Andean departments of Huancavelica and Ayacucho, and in Lima. The interviews were initially directed at the relationship between grass-roots organisations and the state, but the women also pointed to the importance of the fight against domestic violence in their lives. In this article I also draw on a sample of twenty interviews with women's leaders in the department of Ayacucho, which I directed specifically at the issue of domestic violence. These short interviews generated some interesting insights, although they were constrained and held in difficult circumstances due to the setting: The police station for battered women. The interviews were mainly held in Spanish, transcribed by a Peruvian, and the translations into English are my own. Some of the interviews were held with the help of a Spanish-Quechua translator, Kelly Ortega, whom I thank for her help.
13. The popular support that Fujimori enjoyed throughout his rule, and even today, made the description of the regime as a 'dictatorship' contentious. However, the uncovering of the 'true' nature of the Fujimori regime after his flight to Japan in 2000 made clear that the level of control he and his cronies exercised over the state apparatus and over citizens, and justifies the use of the term.
14. The term supermadre was coined by Elsa Chaney, in Supermadre: Women in Politics in Latin America, (Austin, 1979). In my doctoral dissertation I studied Fujimori's political relationship with women and his use of certain woman-friendly discourses: See Jelke Boesten, 'Negotiating Womanhood, Reproducing Inequality. Women and Social Policy in Peru,' unpub. Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2004
15. see also: Gregory D. Schmidt, 'All the President's Women: Fujimori and Gender Equity in Peruvian Politics,' paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association Conference, Dallas, Texas, 2003, and Cecilia Blondet, El encanto del dictador (Lima, 2002).
16. Blondet, El encanto del dictador, p. 48.
17. Plan Nacional Contra la Violencia Hacia la Mujer, 2001 www.promudeh.gov.pe [Accessed: Oct. 2003]
18. 'Aplicación de la ley de protección frente a la violencia familiar 26260,' Encuentro de redes y mesas interinstitucionales que trabajan en el tema de violencia familiar en Lima metropolitana, Villa El Salvador, Villa María del Triunfo, 2003-2004, facsimile.
19. Interview with Emma Espinoza, lawyer at the CEM of Pamplona Alta, Lima and Betsy Flores, social worker at the CEM of Tacna, and Movimiento Flora Tristán, Violencia familar y sexual. Diagnóstico sobre servicios de atención (Lima, 2003). This study is based on interviews with users and service providers in twelve Peruvian cities regarding the quality of services in the CEMs and special police stations.
20. Louise Egan, Rights and Renewal. Peru's Women Take Cases to the Courts, the Media and the Streets, Ford Foundation Report, Winter 2000, at www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm [accessed Nov. 2001]. In a similar way, Michiel Baud has observed how in the Dominican Republic, patriarchal control over women was sustained and reproduced by both politically powerful and less powerful men, i.e., by a class crossing male solidarity that legitimised the subordination of women. See Michiel Baud, 'Patriarchy and Changing Family Strategies: Class and Gender in the Dominican Republic,' The History of the Family, vol. 2, no. 4 (1997), pp. 355-78.
21. Espinoza Matos, Violencia en la familia en Lima y el Callao, 13. According to Deborah Poole, the law on conciliation was set up as part of a larger project of judicial reforms encouraged by the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank and USAID; see Deborah Poole, 'Between Threat and Guarantee: Justice and Community on the Margins of the Peruvian State,' in Veena Das and Deborah Poole (eds.), Anthropology in the Margins of the State (Santa Fe, 2004), p. 52.
22. Ley de Conciliación, No 26872, www.leyes.congreso.gob.pe
23. Poole 'Between Threat and Guarantee,' p. 55.
24. Personal communication, Silvia Loli, October 2003.
25. Angela Teresa Hernandez Cajo, 'El procesamiento de las denuncias de violencia familiar en juzgados de paz letrados de Lima,' 2000, and Gina Yáñez, 'Violencia contra la mujer. Aplicación de la ley de violencia familiar desde una perspectiva de género: Estudios de caso,' 1998, both cited in Bardales Mendoza, Estado de la investigaciones en violencia familiar y sexual en el Perú (Lima, 2003).
26. Julieta Estremadoyro, 'Domestic Violence in Andean Communities of Peru,' Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal, 2001, vol. 1, at http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/global/issue/2001-1/estremadoyro.html
27. Ibid.
28. Personal conversation with Julia and her father, Ayacucho, December 2002.
29. Marisol de la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, 1919-1991 (Durham, NC, 2000).
30. Sara Nelson, 'Constructing and Negotiating Gender in Women's Police Stations in Brazil,' Latin American Perspectives, vol. 23, no. 1 (1996), pp. 131-48.
31. Movimiento Flora Tristán, Violencia familiar y sexual.
32. Grass-roots organisations encountered resistance from organised political factions as well, and were a target for Sendero Luminoso; see for example Maruja Barrig, 'The Difficult Equilibrium between Bread and Roses: Women's Organizations and Democracy in Peru,' in Jane S. Jaquette (ed.), The Women's Movement in Latin America: Participation and Democracy (Boulder, 1994), pp. 151-76.
33. Cecilia Blondet, 'In No-Man's Land: Poor Women's Organizations and Political Violence in Lima's Neighbourhoods,' in R. Abers, J. Friedmann and L. Autler (eds.), Emergences: Women's Struggles for Livelihood in Latin America (Los Angeles, 1996), pp. 79-90.
34. In addition, the TRC has unveiled the more horrific facts as well as the resistance offered by organised women in the face of Sendero Luminoso: Narda Henriquez and Julissa Mantilla, 'Contra viento y marea: Cuestiones de género y poder en la memoria colectiva, Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación' (ms., Lima, 2003). There is a plentiful literature on grass-roots women's organisations in Peru. See, for example, Maruja Barrig, 'Democracia emergente: Movimientos de mujeres,' in Eduardo Ballón Echegaray (ed.), Movimientos sociales y democracia: La fundación de un nuevo orden (Lima, 1986), pp. 147-83
35. Cecilia Blondet, Muchas vidas construyendo una identidad: Las mujeres pobladoras de un barrio limeño (Lima, 1986)
36. Blondet, 'El movimiento de mujeres en el Perú,' in Peru 1964-1994: economía, sociedad y politica (Lima, 1995), pp. 103-34.
37. The idea that husbands were often hostile to women's organising is found in the personal stories of women used in these texts. A lively account of the dynamics of organising in urban slums can be found in testimonies such as Francesca Denegri, Soy señora: Testimonio de Irene Jara (Lima, 2000).
38. However, the phenomenon of men who beat their wives as a response to women's public activities is not unique to Peru. See, for example, Nikki Craske, 'Women's Political Participation in Colonias Populares in Guadalajara, Mexico,' in S. Radcliffe and S. Westwood (eds.), 'Viva': Women and Popular Protest in Latin America (London, 1993), pp. 112-35, 128.
39. I have changed the names of all interviewees.
40. For an early discussion of these Ayacucho clubes de madres, see Isabel Coral, 'Women in War: Impact and Responses,' in Steve Stern (ed.), Shining and Other Paths. War and Society in Peru, 1980-1995 (Durham, NC, and London, 1998), pp. 345-74.
41. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has documented the attacks on civil organisations, including the clubes de madres: See Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, 'Informe Final,' Vol. III, Chapter 3.2.2, 2003, at www.cverdad.org.pe [Accessed: 25 September 2003].
42. Interview with Teodomira, Ayacucho, December 2002.
43. Efraín Gonzales de Olarte and Pilar Gavilano Llosa, Pobreza y violencia doméstica contra la mujer en Lima Metropolitana (Lima, 1998), p. 38.
44. Various studies speak about the permissiveness among women towards male violence, for example: INEI and Comisión de la Mujer del Congreso, Encuesta de hogares sobre Vida Familiar en Lima Metropolitana, 1999, cited in Bardales Mendoza, Estado de las investigaciones en violencia familiar.
45. Interview with Gloria, San Miguel, La Mar, January 2003.
46. Interview with Emma, Ayacucho, January 2003.
47. Interview with Teófila, Ayacucho, January 2003.
48. Jane S. Jaquette, 'Conclusion: Women's Political Participation and Prospects for Democracy,' in Jane S. Jaquette, The Women's Movement in Latin America, p. 225
49. Emma Cervone, 'Engendering Leadership: Indigenous Women Leaders in the Ecuadorian Andes,' in Lesie Jo Frazier, Rosario Montoya and Janise Hurtig (eds.), Gender's Place: Feminist Anthropologies of Latin America (New York and Basingstoke, 2002), p. 184.
50. The idea of changing gender roles embedded in larger social changes that change - but do not necessarily increase - motivations for violent spousal conflict is argued by Henrietta Moore, 'The Problem of Explaining Violence in the Social Sciences,' in Peter Gow and Penelope Harvey (eds.), Sex and Violence: Issues in Representation and Experience (London and New York, 1994), pp. 138-55
51. see also Heidi Tinsman, 'Household Patrones: Wife-Beating and Sexual Control in Rural Chile, 1964-1988,' in John D. French and Daniel James (eds.), The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers (Durham, NC, and London, 1997), pp. 264-95.
52. Vargas, 'The Struggle by Latin American Feminisms for Rights and Autonomy,' in Nikki Craske and Maxine Molyneux (eds.), Gender and the Politics of Rights in Latin America (Durham, NC, 2002) p. 217.
53. During my last visit to Lima, in August 2005, the government was discussing a reduction of the funds available, against which NGOs were protesting.